Royal Navy to cut fleet by half?

Westy, I am afraid that you're living in the past. The downsizing of our beleagured armed forces is currently under serious review not only by the treasury, but also by the defence chiefs and the chiefs of staff.

Unfortunately for us, our glorious leaders have taken us in to two seperate wars that really, having absolutely nothing to do with us, and now we are going to pay the piper.

By that I mean our future defence structure is going to suffer at the hands of our future prime minister, that dour old scott and defence hater, Gordon Brown.

It is well known in our circles, that he has demanded cuts of up to 2.5 BILLION pounds from the armed services and he is not particularly bothered from where they come from.

For example, the Typhoon Eurofighter is not as safe as people think, neither are the two so called super carriers, Type 45, 46, 90 whatever destroyers, frigates, ships whatever. Challenger IIs and their replacements are not being ordered, defence contracts are being scrapped but luckily for all concerned, there is a new and much plusher interior at the MOD Admiralty Buildings in Whitehall - all for a measely £3M. amazing!

The reason? Supporting the Yanks in Afghanistan and Iraq during the last year has cost way above the ludicrous £3.5 Billion pounds that was estimated in the budget. [I'd love to know where they get their figures from]

Add to that the continuing and spiraling costs of operating in Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and all the other tin pot little firefights labour have dragged us into and the costs just go up and up!

£2.3 Bn Fritz!!

The Tories have called for an inquiry into the estimated £2.3bn cost of the Ministry of Defence's new Whitehall HQ.
The party want the National Audit Office (NAO) to look into the private finance refurbishment project, the cost of which will be repaid over 30 years.

Leader David Cameron said British people were on tight budgets and did not want a "big-spending government".

The MoD said the NAO reviewed the on-budget project in 2002 and found there had been "effective procurement".

news.bbc.co.uk...

Those plasma screens and coffee bars don't come cheap you know!

Good to see the MOD and the top brass (responsible for £ millions of wastage daily) are happy to share the buget strictures with the lads stuck up on the front-line with crap guns & crap ammo or all those sailors wondering how to shoot down a plane with a 'fitted for' weapons system.

I think the following review explains the decline of the Royal Navy.

navy-matters.beedall.com...

And the numbers there do not include the rumoured changes being discussed in this thread.

Oh and to the guy who suggested that not having a type 23 replacement in the works was not a problem as they still have a 15 year lifespan left. How long exactly do you think it takes to research, design and built a modern frigate? We will be very lucky to have anything in place in 15 years without a massive increase in spending on design.

An Island without a fleet is just asking for trouble how on Earth are we meant to protect 9000 miles of coastline or the 300 inhabited islands we have and thats not including all the territories all over the world we have to protect with a handful of underfunded ships and relying on our frankly unstable allies to protect us in a time of need isn't exactly safe.

I find it funny how they will gladly sacrifice our safety but not cut there own wages/expenses(do we really need to pay for mr. politicians flight to Spain for his yearly 'political' excursion) which frankly I expect is where a lot of out hard earned money goes to in the first place.

Nuff said Edn. Good point, well presented.

Perhaps this Labour government would prefer our shores to be protected by all the Spanish trawlers that ply their trade up and down our coast and in our fishing grounds?

Better yet, perhaps the canny, wee Scot could ask the skipper of the Russian factory ship that lives in the Severn Estuary, collecting elvers?

You don't suppose do you, that Blair and Co are going to ask Continental Europe to look after the North Sea while the French patrol the English Channel?

The state of the Armed forces in this country is reaching an all time desperate state. I am a serving member of the RN and what you see in the news is only half of what is being banded about with wild ideas and cost cutting. Keep your eyes and ears on the press in the next month or so

Yes in some areas people think Health And Safety matters are far more important than say protecting high value units in areas that ain't the most friendly, or giving troops body armour. But to reduce the ships available (and the whole armed forces) to respond to incidents elsewhere is criminal.

the falklands are obvious, we cannot do it again simple. But what about the other over the horizon threats? Iran (one of the axis of evil) she's got excellent new russian subs and a good sized fleet with good hardware (not the best but good), North Korea well we all know how nuts they are.

The state of the Navy is frightening and i have seen in 15 years a massive destruction in our fighting power. We sell ships that are only 8 years old to south american governments with the latest naval gun installed and we have other older ships with the older system.

Blair liked the armed forces when they did his dirty work, but now what? Thanks lads but you now can't have the kit to fight and win elsewhere or that will save lives now on the battlefield.

Sad Sad Sad Sad

Originally posted by st3ve_o

no offence here dude but for me that is a typical cowboy response and the kinda reply how many americans look at things, reading your posts though in the past id think you should know better than that

- i will reply to it though, the lifespan of the current trident doesn't expire while 2040's.

the RN needs naval ships now (or next 10 years), what happens if argentina decide to invade the falklands again, do we threaten them with ALL 3 destoryers (if that article is true)?

so what happens if they manage to sink those? last option NUKE EM?

yeah man niceone, should make britain quite popular shouldn't it?

spain are wanting gibraltar back aswell - 3 warships are not going to warn them off.

projecting a substanical force around the global is essential for a country like britain and its something we must maintain.

Completely agree with you here..
A stronger conventional capability is what is required here; esp with the falklands and gibraltar.
I believe those Tridents are/were only for stampeding soviet forces(an extension of the US rapid-nuke-response)..
And I can't see much use of the Tridents in substantial numbers in today's world.Moreover I doubt the US-UK relationship will ever wither to an extent that the UK may feel the need to have a full fledged self-sufficient N-deterent. The US will always provide that indirectly IMHO.
Maybe a minimum SLBM deterence for Russia/China will suffice; i.e. cut the SSBN fleet in half and maintain 2 SSBNs max(possibly upgrade warheads and MiRV capability?).
Keep a sufficient number of SSNs(new LO SSNs?); IMO they're conventional trump cards for any blue water navy.
Build more Carriers (have at least 2 operational at all times) and build more frigates/destroyers thus strengthening the near-home base consisting of the North Atlantic,baltic/north Arctic and Mediterreanean.
Never know when the French might turn on yall!!

Very well said Daedalus3.

I have been saying for more months than I care to remember, that whilst I agree we do need a nuclear deterrent, we do not need Trident.

ALCM or SLCM with nuclear warheads will do very nicely, thank you. Nor do we need the JSF. This is not political claptrap, this is political reality.

As Daedalus3 rightly points out, the Trident was there to give marauding Russian hordes a damned good spanking, if they dared to swarm over the East German border.

If Bush and Blair are to be believed, the threat facing the western societies now comes from the Muslim fundamentalist armed with rucksack or suicide waistcoat bombs.

They hardly warrant a nuclear response, no matter how bigoted your politics are.

We have an above average aircraft in the Eurofighter Typhoon. We have one of the premier tanks in the world. We have soldiers that are second to none.

What we should be doing, is supporting these men and women with the best kit and equipment that money can buy. If that kit and equipment comes at a price, then the money can be found by scrapping Trident.

It is an obsolete weapon system that belongs in the dim and distant memories of MAD.

It is an obscene waste of money when our conventional forces are being bloodied in Afghanistan and bared to the bone back home.

There is a solution, but it requires every man and woman stand up for our forces and vote these warmongering bastards out of office.

Because if you don't, and the Scott wins the next election, then our forces are in for a very, very rough time.

At present units are being rotated through Irag and Afghanistan every 18 months. As more equipment becomes u/s and shortages mount up, then deployments will start to come round every 12 months and with infantry battalions cut to the bare minimum, units will start to be deployed more often.

I'm sorry fritz but I cant agree ,your suggesting we remove all our SSBN's and replace them with attack subs. Not only will this mean that the submarine will have to get close to it target (very close) to fire its cruise missiles but a cruise missile is much easier to shoot down than a ballastic missile going at mach 3+.

Fritz I'm half and half with the JSF, we've already spent so much on it that it would be a waste not to use the bugger. The typhoon is a nice plane but is not a carrier jet, sorry but without major rework of both carrier and plane it isnt going to take off from a carrier.

Maybe we should start looking at pulling out of iraq or afghanistan sooner than anticipated...

Originally posted by devilwasp
I'm sorry fritz but I cant agree ,your suggesting we remove all our SSBN's and replace them with attack subs. Not only will this mean that the submarine will have to get close to it target (very close) to fire its cruise missiles but a cruise missile is much easier to shoot down than a ballastic missile going at mach 3+.

Like I said.. keep 2 SSBNs:
That gives you a min of ~100 warheads and 32 SLBMs and a max of 384 warheads!
Not too sure about the compromise on SLBMs and SLCMs.
IMO the Russian ABM capability is just as good as its ACM capability esp since the systems employed are the same and dual use S-400/S-300?
Plus there's a whole n/w of Early warning satellites specific to SLBMs/ICBMs.
The one thing that SLCMs fall short on are the MiRV capabilities and warhead sizes thus limiting deliverable yields?

EDIT:
Range is a possible shortcoming also but the tomahawks are 1500km and thats not bad for a submarine capability. I think there are 3000km CMs as well but don't know if they're only Russian or western as well.
Look at the 'rumored' solution the Israelis have:
Doplhin Class SSKs configured to fire nuclear tipped BGM-109 SLCMs gives them a decent second strike capability against whomsoever..
SSNs with the same nuclear BGM-109s isn't so bad. Esp if you can develop/get ranges of ~3000km in the future.

[edit on 11-1-2007 by Daedalus3]

Originally posted by Daedalus3
Like I said.. keep 2 SSBNs:
That gives you a min of ~100 warheads and 32 SLBMs and a max of 384 warheads!

Yes with only 1 delivery mechanism availible at any one time, 3 gives us the opertunity to have one going off duty, one going on duty and another half way through its time off.

Not too sure about the compromise on SLBMs and SLCMs.
IMO the Russian ABM capability is just as good as its ACM capability esp since the systems employed are the same and dual use S-400/S-300?
Plus there's a whole n/w of Early warning satellites specific to SLBMs/ICBMs.
The one thing that SLCMs fall short on are the MiRV capabilities and warhead sizes thus limiting deliverable yields?

Stopping a ICBM is slightly more difficult than stopping a cruise missle, russian ABM hasnt been tested yet and frankly I dont hold any ABM defence at this moment very highly.

Doplhin Class SSKs configured to fire nuclear tipped BGM-109 SLCMs gives them a decent second strike capability against whomsoever..
SSNs with the same nuclear BGM-109s isn't so bad. Esp if you can develop/get ranges of ~3000km in the future.
[edit on 11-1-2007 by Daedalus3]

Frankly I'd prefer a sniper rifle to an assault rifle , if you catch my drift.

Originally posted by WestPoint23

Originally posted by stumason
Not really. The Type-42 has only a twin Sea dart launcher on board, plus a collection of guns of various calibres, plus Phalanx CIWS.

With only 4 Type-42's in service, that makes a total increase in SAM launchers of 280, if you take it as 6 Type-45's and not 8.

Umm... where are you getting your figures from? There are eight Type 42's in service, and they will be replaced by six Type 45's. Stu, each Type 42 carries more than two missile onboard in their internal magazine. You also forgot the torpedoes and the fact that it has three more guns than the Type 45.

Indeed, you are quite right. I can only think, as I was flipping between web pages, that I read the page concerning the Type 23's rather than the 42's. My bad

As for the armament, the Type-42's have only the one launcher, which has two missiles. Yes, they will obviously have more, but what use is more if your first two fail to deal with the threat, maybe there are more than two enemy aircraft?

One thing I cannot seem to find any verification on is the amount of missiles that the SYLVER launcher is loaded with.

All I can find is that it comes in 8-pod modules. How many modules does the Type-45 have? The Charles de Gaulle, for example, has 2 modules as far as I can tell, but that is still counted as one launcher.

I have worked out, using my incredible mathmatical brain, that 48 missiles would mean 6 modules. Does the 48 missiles quoted in all the bumf include those held in stock, or is the total on board? This could be answered by finding out how many SYLVER modules the Type-45 has.

Originally posted by paperplane_uk

Oh and to the guy who suggested that not having a type 23 replacement in the works was not a problem as they still have a 15 year lifespan left. How long exactly do you think it takes to research, design and built a modern frigate? We will be very lucky to have anything in place in 15 years without a massive increase in spending on design.

I am "the Guy"...

About 10 years, from inception to build. The original Horizon Destroyers project, that the RN was part of, was where the Type-45 stemmed from. The RN withdrew in 1999 and went on the develop the Type-45. So, from those figures, I'd say about 5-6 years minimum, 10 years tops.

But your right, there does need to be action and now. Unfortunately, I don't see that tight-arse jock Brown agreeing to it....

Stu, the Type 45 will have six modules (as you said each module has eight missiles) in one large group. The SYLVER is a VLS, as such it cannot be reloaded at sea that is why VLS ships don't carry any extra missiles on board. The Type 45 therefore only has a capacity for 48 missiles, no internal stores. Furthermore the Type 45 will carry the A50 version of the SYLVER modules, which means it can only accommodate missiles up to five meters long. This effectively makes the Type 45 non Tomahawk or Storm Shadow capable.

Also, the Type 42 has a twin rail launcher which can be reloaded immediately after launch (within a few seconds) via an automatic reload mechanism. Therefore as I said before if it's internal magazine can carry close to 48 missiles then the Type 45 will offer no significant increase in terms of numbers.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Stu, the Type 45 will have six modules (as you said each module has eight missiles) in one large group. The SYLVER is a VLS, as such it cannot be reloaded at sea that is why VLS ships don't carry any extra missiles on board. The Type 45 therefore only has a capacity for 48 missiles, no internal stores. Furthermore the Type 45 will carry the A50 version of the SYLVER modules, which means it can only accommodate missiles up to five meters long. This effectively makes the Type 45 non Tomahawk or Storm Shadow capable.

Also, the Type 42 has a twin rail launcher which can be reloaded immediately after launch (within a few seconds) via an automatic reload mechanism. Therefore as I said before if it's internal magazine can carry close to 48 missiles then the Type 45 will offer no significant increase in terms of numbers.

Ahhhhhh.... that answers some questions then..

Bit buggered about having the A50 types. All the hype surrounding the Daring Class says it can be used as a cruise missile platform.

Upon further reading, however, it appears this is merely a feasability study and no firm plans are in progress to aquire something like the US Mk 141 VLS launchers, which can use Tomahawks. Even the French, who have got the Horizon Class destroyers (the project we left), can use Storm Shadows....

I am beggining to feel like the premise of this thread may ring true. Our politicians are screwing the Forces but expecting so much of them....

EDIT: I'm a fool...Called the Horizon a Hazard class... That's an American Type isn't it?

[edit on 11/1/07 by stumason]

Originally posted by stumason

I am "the Guy"...

About 10 years, from inception to build. The original Horizon Destroyers project, that the RN was part of, was where the Type-45 stemmed from. The RN withdrew in 1999 and went on the develop the Type-45. So, from those figures, I'd say about 5-6 years minimum, 10 years tops.

But you forgot about the NFR-90 project to replace the type 42's before the Horizon project was started. Feasability studies for the NFR-90 started in 1985, but the project broke up in 1989, due to the proposed design being unlikely to meet the demands for a type 42 replacement.

The government of the day then did nothing for 3 years (they probably hoped it would just magically go away). They then joined the Horizon programme in 1992, but again withdrew because the project was not meeting requirements. That was as you said in 1999.

They have since developed the type 45 (HMS Daring is due to be in service in 2009 after a lengthy trials period). This is heavily based on the Horizon project which is what has allowed them to get to the build satge so quickly.

The total time from initial identification of a need to replace the type 42 to their replacement in service is 24 years!!!!!!!!!!!

With the type 23's, we have not got past the stage of trying to figure out what we actually want from a replacement. No specification or requirement has been issued for anything other than basic paper studies. They can't even decide (or be bothered to pay) what it is this country needs or wants in a replacement. The FSC and MVD projects that have both recently been cancelled were just concept work. There are no plans anymore for any further serious work on a type 23 replacement till the middle of the next decade by which time the type 23's will be getting on for 25 years old (if we still have any left!).

The government have completly failed to take a naval ship building programme seriously, have delayed ordering critical projects, leading to further decline in this countries ship building ability, mismanaged those projects that they have ordered leading to costly mistakes and changes whilst under construction. And trimmed the budget back so far that mission critical systems are being left out of the designs in order to save a few pennies. ( does anyone seriously ever really think they will fit any of the the stuff that is 'fitted for but not with' on the current designs)

ive learned a lot from this thread actaully, ive always thought we was investing 'hughly' in our armed forces.

i can't udnerstand though how we have the 2nd highest defence budget in the world, yet it seems our govenment is letting everybody down, where is all the money going?

maybe we should create an online petition (they are good these things)

www.petitiononline.com...

everybody sign it (huge gathering on ats) and post it to the mod.

from a good information website such as wikipedia, the future of the royal navy sounds all so promising though when you look at the 'analysis' part:-

en.wikipedia.org...

*scratches head*

[edit on 11-1-2007 by st3ve_o]

Indeed, I was under the same impression. Me thinks that the Iraq War and Afghanistan are costing us far more than we think, and the grey skinned toad, otherwise known as Boring Brown, is a penny pinching git.

I would happily pay another 10p on my fags and booze if they would give our boys (who volunteer for this) the support they need.

Anyone watch that Dispatches on Monday night? That was an insight into how stretched our guys are in the Afghan campaign.

Those analyses are based on a lot of presumptions and "facts" which quite frankly don't hold up when you look at them realistically. What the RN lacks is numbers, it has the quality but not the money to pay for the quantity, there has to be a compromise between those two general areas.